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The official opinions from Sony, Ubisoft, WB, BN, Apple, Riot, Google and more about the Activision Blizzard acquisition
- Thread starter Idas
- Start date
- Activision/Blizzard
Curious where you saw temporary block? Everything I find makes no mention of it.
FTC sues to block Facebook owner Meta from buying VR fitness app maker
The lawsuit echoes issues progressive critics have said the FTC should have raised in Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp roughly a decade ago.
www.cnbc.com
Ah yes the if you aren't anti something you are pro something which helps constructive critique and debate a lot and doesn't lead into entrenched positions at all
MS isn't throwing endless money at GP right now. So why would they do it later, once the growth phase is over? Gamepass is very likely loosing money, which is normal during growth. But the numbers still need to be reasonable. GP can't burn the money of a trillion dollar company, since such a model could never be turned around to be profitable later on and that's the long-term goal. As Spencer once said Xbox division is profitable now, so that means all the cost associated with GP is covered by Xbox. Excluding acquisition, because that cost isn't associated with GP.
But they started it all by throwing a pebble...now will come my rich cousin and you will see...is quite childish, and nothing constructive in a serious discussion.
Throwing a pebble is Sony using their marketshare (because being bigger means exclusivity deals are cheaper) to continue to deprive Xbox of games while Sony is approaching near 50% marketshare over Nintendo and Xbox?
I think it was in breakdown by Hoeg or somebody, that basically what FTC is asking is to put the deal on hold while they are collecting more evidence on it being bad.Curious where you saw temporary block? Everything I find makes no mention of it.
FTC sues to block Facebook owner Meta from buying VR fitness app maker
The lawsuit echoes issues progressive critics have said the FTC should have raised in Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp roughly a decade ago.
They will tell that Azure is growing and no stakeholder will bother with anything else.
Makes no sense. Microsoft isn't in the business of burning all their money on GP. They are in the business of making higher profits (long-term) and sometimes investments are needed. But those need to be reasonable no matter what we think. Spencer said Xbox is profitable so whatever the cost of GP is, is well within the Xbox division capacities. They don't need to burn azure money to offer and grow GP.
GP and Xbox division is nowhere near close to burning money for them. Their whole Xbox division is not that expensive to be even considered a separate section in their own spreadsheets. They make 20b in pure profits per quarter and those money just go to the koffers. Since the announcement of ABK deal, they made around 60b. The whole Xbox amounts to around 8% right now of their annual revenue.
Microsoft made 200b in revenue this year and the whole gaming revenue was also 200b for this year. Whole gaming across all the platforms (PC, mobile, consoles).
But then I am not sure what are you arguing against as I stated that Microsoft can spend another 10b-20b etc. on gaming but stakeholders will ask only about Azure. Xbox expenses are miniscule in comparison to Microsoft proper.
That's what is frightening with big tech giants - they can burn billions just for fun or out of interest to see if there initiative works out or not. As long as Xbox does not eat all the profits per quarter, nobody will care.
The audacity to list Blade & Soul and TERA (which shut down a month ago btw) as WoW competitors lol
The American process is transparent (not comms, but the process is).... if you read the associated laws. These comments are not like SEC disclosures and can be misleading, meaning companies can stretch the truth. These comments really do not matter, because none of them touch on anything that would afoul of anti trust... some how these make gaming headlines. I have to imagine that this post are full of people that do not follow M&A's. Read the law and see what they look for, pay attention to the overall market... not just a specific product in a market.... If there are concessions, they will be posted, but there probably will not be any legally binding concessions.... also, MS saying they will keep anything multi plat is a gesture that is not legally binding.
No, the purchase of ABK was an opportunistic move. Microsoft took advantage of Acti's weak position because of the revelations of toxic culture and Bobby's involvement in these cases of harassment and sexual assault. Without these problems you would never have had a possible purchase.
Yeah, and if this does come up a suit, it's going to flop hard because it'll be impossible to prove that meta owning this company would prevent competing fitness apps from existing or even that fitness apps are essential for success in the metaverse market.
This politically motivated action shouldn't be used to provide context on the Activision deal
People are getting a bit too specific with positional arguments on competition to CoD. It depends entirely on how you frame the argument, just like how the FTC narrowed it down so much as to file an injunction against Meta's acquisition of Within for the "VR fitness app" market. Comments here spanning from "any entertainment is a fight for time" to "CoD is the only 'realistic' military FPS with this sort of pull", both are correct when defining engagement, it's entirely up to how you frame it within the context of an argument.
Sony isn't arguing whether there are similar games to CoD from a gameplay/audience perspective, but entirely on its cultural cache & widespread reach. So much so that it isn't feasible for another entrant to chip away at it's market-share in any meaningful way. Whether that is an argument of merit is entirely up to regulatory bodies in each jurisdiction, who have access to significantly more information that isn't public (redacted lines etc.). We will never have the full picture.
3rd party publishers of competitive games in the genre likely don't care as (1) They don't generate any revenue from CoD anyway, and (2) It represents an avenue for their competitive games in the genre to expand reach, if it was made exclusive.
Anyway, always interesting to see comments from the industry on deals like this. Curious if other jurisdictions publish similar to glean from behind-the-doors thoughts.
Sony isn't arguing whether there are similar games to CoD from a gameplay/audience perspective, but entirely on its cultural cache & widespread reach. So much so that it isn't feasible for another entrant to chip away at it's market-share in any meaningful way. Whether that is an argument of merit is entirely up to regulatory bodies in each jurisdiction, who have access to significantly more information that isn't public (redacted lines etc.). We will never have the full picture.
3rd party publishers of competitive games in the genre likely don't care as (1) They don't generate any revenue from CoD anyway, and (2) It represents an avenue for their competitive games in the genre to expand reach, if it was made exclusive.
Anyway, always interesting to see comments from the industry on deals like this. Curious if other jurisdictions publish similar to glean from behind-the-doors thoughts.
It doesn't have any bearing on this deal from the FTC, but it does give more insight that they are willing to get more 'creative' in their arguments for filing injunctions.
I'm so curious how they landed on those. Was that just whatever showed up on Google results for the person writing the response? Is there some B&S-head who specifically plays that game and thought to mention it? I want to know how they landed on that game and not one of the vastly more popular games like GW2, ESO, FFXIV, etc.
Idas bravo on another great post, really like reading these in the XGS OT
I thought this bit from Sony was more telling than their obvious qualms with COD going exclusive, or at the very least losing marketing and having the franchise release day and date on a competitor's subscription service. Sony making it pretty clear here that they can not (or will not) be able to compete with the level of investment MS is making. This much has been fairly obvious with their recent roll out of the new PS+ tiers, but still interesting to see them basically say they are years behind competing with MS with these types of services.
But LOL @ how day and date releases would harm consumers.
What is the context behind that last line for Google? Are they saying that once this acquisition goes through there will be more developers/publishers on the market to be acquired (by MS?) or are they just stating that there will still be plenty of third party content being made despite ABK becoming part of XGS's first party?
I thought this bit from Sony was more telling than their obvious qualms with COD going exclusive, or at the very least losing marketing and having the franchise release day and date on a competitor's subscription service. Sony making it pretty clear here that they can not (or will not) be able to compete with the level of investment MS is making. This much has been fairly obvious with their recent roll out of the new PS+ tiers, but still interesting to see them basically say they are years behind competing with MS with these types of services.
But LOL @ how day and date releases would harm consumers.
What is the context behind that last line for Google? Are they saying that once this acquisition goes through there will be more developers/publishers on the market to be acquired (by MS?) or are they just stating that there will still be plenty of third party content being made despite ABK becoming part of XGS's first party?
I think it just means there will be plenty of third parties still around.
These two specific KRMMORPGs are so so niche. I don't know how their names even showed up here. They're the two biggest "real action combat" players in the market. Or well, one of them was since it is no more. BnS can't have more than 2-3k peak concurrent players, same for TERA the past 5 years. It's just funny to me to see big corporations comparing them.
But yes, GW2, ESO, FFXIV, and now Lost Ark are the biggest competitors. FFXIV is probably the most similar since they have a very similar business model: buy the game, buy the expansions, pay the sub to play, cosmetics&convenience MTX in the shop. FFXIV has a big playerbase on console (PS4/PS5) however, where WoW is not available. Would be really interested to see WoW showing up on console platforms, and see how it'd do.
I doubt we'll see free DLCs & free expansions (COD), or even free subs (WoW) in Gamepass. No game currently offers that, they're all paid DLCs also in first-party games. Forza Horizon's Hot Wheels expansion is the last one I can think of.
I doubt WoW will show up on console. FFXIV takes great pains to be playable on a controller that aren't feasible for WoW to do with how long its been out. Microsoft is likely going to tolerate it being PC only the same way they do for strategy games.
???
Last gen, just about everything was multiplat besides a few games. If anything, you couldn't spell PS4/XBO without multiplat since exclusives were a dying breed.
This was my read as well.
My guess is that we'd see MS do similar with WoW that they do with ESO, where you get access to the base game (minus the most recent expansion in WoW's case) and then some various other perks, but not the subscription itself.
Or with WoW's popularity, I could see them doing like Apple does where they start offering combo subscriptions with slight discounts, like $25 for Game Pass Ultimate + WoW sub combo. A WoW sub alone is the same price as GPU, so no way they'd include it for "free" with the current subscription.
I think FFXIV's approach to world design also lends itself to console easier. It's slower paced (for most jobs, even accounting for the weaving of off-gcd abilities), and also zones themselves are generally self-contained and connected by load screens. WoW being a more traditional open world means it's also pretty damn demanding, and they do a lot of technical updates over times to where you actually need a pretty good pc to run it at a good framerate in busy towns and zones. WoW is surprisingly proactive about upgrading its tech and implementing new stuff, like it even has some very basic ray tracing you can turn on now.
I'm sure the current consoles could manage it, but I wouldn't be surprised if part of their reluctance is that they'd be binding themselves to console hardware for the rest of the game's life, which is an issue that FFXIV did run into and caused them to sunset the PS3 version. I'm sure at some point the same will happen to the PS4 version once it's holding the game back.
Find a stock ticker and check Activision Blizzards stock around November to January. That's why the deal happened when it did.
Sort by PS4 > Scroll down and choose (Full Exclusive) - (Timed Exclusive) - (Added Content). Do a count and then switch to XBO and then do a count. Then come back and edit your post. It'll even tell you if its first party or not so you can bypass those, but the differential is much more than "a few games".
Nvm lmao just checked how much the entire cod franchise makes. Apex doesnt even come close to cod mobile
COD Mobile is at $1.5b in revenue as of February 2022
Apex Legends made $2b as of May 2022
Apex Legends is doing slightly better but COD as a franchise is way way way ahead.
They're different though. ESO is B2P with optional sub, WoW is B2P with mandatory sub. Sure you can give base WoW for free, but people still have to pay the sub to play! That would be just weird. Switching WoW to a B2P model with opt-in sub is something they can consider, though.
On the FFXIV topic, IMO it's clearly built around Playstation more than PC. That's why it works.
Sony had a strangle hold on the JRPG market, either due to indifference from MS, or from a variety of deals Sony made (FF7R, etc.).
They also had some very heavy marketing deals with third parties for exclusive content (COD, Destiny 2, even Marvel's Avengers)
I also remember they made Destiny 1 DLC (or whatever addon was it) fully exclusive too.
Yeah. Everything they've said leads me to believe they want to charge full price on Playstation, move all marketing to Xbox, release day and date on GP, and keep exclusive perks on Xbox. It will still be available on PS but Xbox/PC would be the defacto place to play similar to how CoD is on PS right now.
It's not really "similar to how CoD is on PS right now" because having the title included day one on Game Pass is a total game changer.
But yeah, other than that, spot on.
Small detail but it wasn't fully exclusive. It was exclusive up until Destiny 2 launch date. So it was more salt in the wound.
Also, Sony was trying to shut MS out of Zenimax with deals for Deathloop, Ghostwire Tokyo, and Starfield before MS bought them.
Sure GP changes things but I don't see a way they get CoD on GP unless they buy ABK.
Not sure what you mean. They are buying ABK hence why it's going to be on GP. I'm sure I'm just misunderstanding what you're saying.
Correct. I am saying their ability to put CoD on GP hinges upon MS buying ABK. I don't see a world where if the deal falls through MS is able to put CoD on GP day and date indefinitely.
Sort by PS4 > Scroll down and choose (Full Exclusive) - (Timed Exclusive) - (Added Content). Do a count and then switch to XBO and then do a count. Then come back and edit your post. It'll even tell you if its first party or not so you can bypass those, but the differential is much more than "a few games".
Putting the humorous condescension aside since you didn't seem to read my post carefully, there are very few full exclusives that I can find that Sony moneyhatted, especially compared to PS3/PS2/PS1. What specifically did they pay to keep off other consoles? Because unlike previous generations, just about everything came out to other platforms either immediately or down the line.
I grew up where a 3rd party game coming out on Playstation didn't mean it was coming to GC or Xbox, or N64. FF7/8/9/Tactics took decades to come to other consoles. Last gen, there were very few third party exclusives I could think of besides SF6 (which came to PC) and FF7R, and since you mentioned moneyhatting, those are the only two I can think of that had any deals related to Sony. Might be more, but hard to conflate PS4 with exclusives when just about every third party game came to Xbox day and date or a year or two down the line.
Marketing is meaningless to everyone here; we all play games where we want. The timed exclusive content was lame, but in that case, everyone was still able to eventually play everything. And in Destiny's case, Bungie was straight-up bought and will still be multiplatform.
For JRPGs: did Sony pay to keep the JRPGs off? Only thing I can think of is FF7R, which seems to be why you etc.'d the rest lol =P. Plus, uou can't equate "indifference from MS" to straight up buying the biggest third party publisher and keeping the games on your platform. It's comparing apples to herpes.
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Essentially nobody has access to the official Sony documents and Sony is always open only with FF moneyhat.
I guess you will be happy to play COD after 2-3 years. Every time people say how they are ok with time exclusivity, they usually play those games Day 1 on another platform.
Microsoft went after what it considered more effective solution. Sony opted for moneyhatting multiple Bethesda titles and tried to do that with Starfield. Everybody is doing what they can afford.
So people are just guessing despite no inside knowledge yet being condescending about how little they actually know?